Anthropic Raises $65 Billion, Elevating Its Valuation

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Anthropic, an artificial intelligence company, announced on Thursday it secured $65 billion in private funding. This significant influx of capital elevates its valuation to $965 billion, positioning the five-year-old creator of the Claude chatbot among the world’s most valuable startups. An initial public offering on Wall Street appears to be on the horizon.

The announcement places Anthropic ahead of its main competitor, OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, in both market value and projected revenue. Anthropic disclosed that it is now generating an annualized revenue of $47 billion. This revenue results from marketing its technology to individuals and organizations that employ Claude for coding and other professional tasks.

Established in 2021 by former OpenAI executives, Anthropic is now part of a trio, including SpaceX and OpenAI, that are anticipated to go public. All three companies presently spend more money than they earn, leading to concerns about a potential AI bubble. The latest funding round for San Francisco-based Anthropic was spearheaded by investment firms Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, Greenoaks Capital, and Sequoia Capital.

This funding will help us serve the historic demand we are experiencing, stay at the research frontier, and bring Claude to more of the places where work happens, said Krishna Rao, Anthropic’s chief financial officer, in a written statement.

On the same day, Anthropic launched Claude Opus 4.8, its latest AI model, claiming improved capabilities in coding and other professional activities compared to its predecessors. The rapid growth of Anthropic and Claude’s rising popularity have pressured OpenAI to keep pace, despite OpenAI’s early lead with ChatGPT, which ignited a commercial AI boom.

OpenAI last reported in March a path toward an $852 billion valuation after raising $122 billion. In the past year, SpaceX’s value grew from $800 billion to $1.25 trillion following its merger with Musk’s xAI. Musk has indicated plans for a significant stock sale, with offers to investors potentially starting next week. OpenAI achieved a significant milestone in its IPO journey after a federal court dismissed a lawsuit filed by Musk, a co-founder and early donor, regarding the company’s compliance with its original nonprofit mission. Musk intends to appeal.

Despite Anthropic’s recent achievements, the company faced challenges, notably a legal dispute with President Trump’s administration about utilizing AI tools like Claude in warfare. Trump ordered a halt on all U.S. agency use of Claude, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth labeled the company a supply chain threat during a public disagreement between the Pentagon and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Anthropic initiated legal proceedings, and the case is progressing through two federal courts.

Simultaneously, Anthropic has engaged with the White House concerning the cybersecurity features and risks of its most advanced model, Mythos, which remains largely unavailable to the public. Anthropic played a significant role in discussions at the Vatican before Pope Leo XIV’s address on Monday, advocating for comprehensive AI regulations and urging developers to prioritize the common good over profit. The manifesto, titled Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity), criticized the concentration of power and data in a few private sector hands as dangerous.